St Regulus Ladies Golf Club champion Abigail May, 15, benefitted from expert coaching set up by St Andrews-based club

As her impressive development continues, Madras College student May is also part of the Scotland under-18 development squad. She and two-handicapper Carly McDonald, 12, is another outstanding Scotland youth star benefiting from the coaching, under PGA professional Middleton at St Andrews Links Golf Academy.

St Regulus junior convenor Wood, 45, of St Andrews, told the Herald and Citizen: “What Abigail has achieved is a huge feat because we have a lot of very low handicap ladies. Winning our ladies championship was a huge boost for Abigail. She’ll be one of our youngest ever winners.

"She’s a big strong girl, hitting drives the best part of 280 yards. She putts very well and is an overall impressive golfer.

“At St Regulus, we’ve got two things that a lot of golf clubs in Scotland don’t have, lots of girls and a bit of funding which is always nice. It’s coming along nicely. The girls are all getting to know each other and you can already see the camaraderie.

"I’ve set up an informal driving range night from 7pm to 8pm on a Monday during the winter. It’s great girls have golf in their diary. A lot of them have a lovely swing.”

Scratch golfer Wood, who played County golf in the West of Scotland for 20 years having first played at Airdrie Golf Club, is a long time Drumpellier Golf Club member who works as an optician. She revealed that – bucking the trend nationally – St Regulus has 50 girl members aged eight to 18, several of whom participate in the coaching stints with Middleton.

The sessions are partly funded by the St Andrews Ladies’ Putting Club, with the R&A also providing very generous support.

The next six-week St Regulus coaching term for club members will start on Sunday, February 11, with 18 girls already signed up and space for more to get involved.

Girls living in St Andrews are all welcome to join the club – email [email protected] for further information.

Wood has been involved with Scottish Golf from 2014 as a volunteer, previously captaining the girls’ under-16, under-18 and ladies teams before stopping that in 2020.

She added: "I never had many girls from St Andrews involved in that set-up over the years. I think I only ever had one girl come out of St Andrews.

"I was keen to get back into the coaching at St Regulus because I recognised that there was a little bit of a gap.

"We don’t produce that many superstar girl golfers and we really should because we have got the ability and we’ve got the numbers.

"I just feel that we should have more girls coming through from St Andrews, from the home of golf.

"We have some good ones coming through. We’ve always got to get them onto the golf course and the club stuff, then onto County stuff and encourage them to play outside the golf club.

"We have a lot of girls aged 12 who are really coming on, with their handicaps coming down. So they’ll be hoping for quite big things this summer I would say.

"I want to see a lot of these junior girls come through, represent Scotland and go onto bigger things. I want a Junior Solheim Cup player.”